You are what you eat. Do you eat where you are?

Magic mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms have been a welcome addition to the CSA shares so far twice this season. They are grown at Paradise Farm, and are for sale on Saturdays at the Paradise tent at the Coral Gables Farmers Market, and also on Sundays at the Redland Organics tent at the Pinecrest Gardens Farmers Market. The following article was published in the Miami Herald on Thursday. Nancy Ancrum did a great job, couldn’t do better myself. Enjoy!

Homestead farmer, African scientist realize mushroom dreams

It was an e-mail that just screamed to be spiked. It came from an African country; it mentioned something about a “lottery;” it hinted that there was a wonderful, enriching opportunity to be had.But Homestead farmer Gabriele Marewski didn’t delete the message. She read it. It wasn’t a scam; it was the world working in mysterious ways.

“Those scam e-mails go right into the spam box. But this one had that first sentence that was intriguing,” Marewski says. “It said, ‘I won the lottery to come to the United States.’ The other ones say, ‘You won the lottery, give us an account number.’ ”

She went from intrigued to hooked when she got to this line: “I can show you how to grow oyster mushrooms.”

What a warm testament to local agriculture. We adore the oyster mushrooms from Paradise Farms–I paired them with brie and poblanos in quesadillas this week and Apalachicola bay oysters in a rich double oyster soup earlier in the month. Can’t wait to stock up at the farmers’ market again this weekend.

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Paula, Larissa . Larissa said: RT @mango_lime: In case you missed it, check out the beautiful story about the oyster mushrooms planted in Paradise Farms http://bit.ly/9YY7dt […]